Facing Adverse Childhood Experiences

Childhood experiences affect psychosocial well-being and mental health across the life course for better or worse. The aim of the present study is to investigate how adverse childhood experiences before the age of 18 impact psychological functioning in young adulthood, and whether social information processing and emotion regulation may mediate these associations.

The study plans to recruit 5000 young adults aged 18 to 21 representative of the German speaking Swiss population. Participant will be invited to the study by mail. Addresses stem from a Swiss sampling registry ("Stichprobenregister SRPH") and are provided by the Swiss Statistical Office. Access to this address lists is reserved to studies of national interest that are funded by the Swiss National Science foundation. Data collection will be conducted online with a REDCap survey following an accelerated cohort design. After the baseline measurement (w1), three follow ups are planned after 1 year (w2), 2 years (w3) and 3 years (w4), resulting in ages 18 to 24 being covered. The primary outcome will be psychosocial functioning across the study period. 1. Primary objective: The primary objective of the study is to analyse the longitudinal associations between childhood experiences, emotion regulation, social information processing, social support and psychosocial functioning in young adults. * Hypothese 1 is that adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are associated with a higher risk for lower psychosocial functioning in young adulthood and 2) that this association is mediated by deficits in emotion regulation, social information processing and lower social support. * Hypothese 2 is that positive childhood experiences are associated with higher social support, adaptive emotion regulation and high well-being in young adulthood and that good relationships with parents and high social support are a protective factor in the presence of adversities. * Hypothese 3 is that among young adults with ACE, higher social support, seeking professional help and more adaptive coping strategies are associated with a more adaptive psychosocial functioning. Secondary objectives are 2. to examine the effect of childhood experiences on emotion regulation and social information processing. 3. to investigate the effects of emotion regulation and social information processing on the quality of friendships and social support. 4. to analyse the longitudinal associations of childhood experiences, emotion regulation, social information processing, social support and the single variables that constitute the composite score of psychosocial functioning, e.g. well-being, psychosocial distress, risk behaviours. 5. to investigate the associations between ACE, emotion regulation and social information processing and seeking professional support. 6. Further exploratory hypotheses investigate whether there are patterns of ACE which show differential associations with emotion regulation, social information processing, support and psychosocial functioning or single variables of psychosocial functioning.